BBC nets 4.4m viewers for Federer’s eighth Wimbledon title

The BBC, the UK’s public-service broadcaster, attracted an average audience of 4.4 million for its live coverage of tennis’ Wimbledon men’s singles final on Sunday.

There was a peak BBC One audience of 6.4 million for Swiss star Roger Federer’s straight sets victory over Croatia’s Marin Cilic.

It was a record eighth Wimbledon men’s singles title for the 35-year-old Federer.

Saturday’s women’s singles final between Spain’s Garbiñe Muguruza and USA’s Venus Williams was watched by an average of 2.5 million viewers on BBC One, with a peak of 4.7 million.

The Spaniard’s two-set defeat of Williams attracted an average viewing figure of 172,000 on Movistar Plus, the pay-TV platform of Spanish telecoms giant Telefónica.

Across its coverage of the championships, the BBC netted its largest peak audience for home favourite Johanna Konta’s three-set victory over Romania’s Simon Halep in the women's quarter-finals, as 7.4 million viewers tuned in last Tuesday.

This represented the BBC’s largest recorded audience for a Wimbledon women’s singles match.

The public-service broadcaster attracted 24.1 million stream requests on its online platforms, the BBC Sport website and BBC iPlayer, during the Wimbledon fortnight.

Gilles Muller of Luxembourg's five-set defeat of Spain’s Rafael Nadal in the fourth round of the men’s singles was the BBC’s most-watched online match, with 1.4 million requests.

Around 18.1 million unique browsers visited the BBC Sport
website during the tournament and 9.2 million followed the website’s live
coverage.